Excerpt: The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone
survey finds that 38% of Likely U.S. Voters still believe businesses should be
required by law to provide health insurance that covers all government-approved
contraceptives for women without co-payments or other charges to the patient. Fifty-one
percent (51%) disagree and say employers should not be required to provide
health insurance with this type of coverage. (Repeal it! “If you’ve got a
majority of folks who believe in something, then it should be able to
pass." --Barack Obama)

Excerpt: A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey
shows that 56% of Likely U.S. Voters believe the health
care system is likely to get worse under the new national health care law.
That’s up from 52% in October and is more similar to the level of pessimism measured from May through August. Just
half as many (28%) expect the health care system to get better, while nine
percent (9%) think it will remain about the same. (Repeal it! “If you’ve
got a majority of folks who believe in something, then it should be able to
pass." --Barack Obama)

Excerpt: ObamaCare loyalists are calling the bid to repair
the broken site a “moonshot” and quoting lines from Apollo 13 as if trying to
fix an overgrown government website is like surviving a return to earth with a
damaged spacecraft. America
has gone from challenges like building 75,000 combat aircraft in a single year
during WW2 and beating the Soviet Union to the
moon… to trying to make a website work.

Excerpt: When 200 of CGI Federal’s top managers gathered at
the luxurious Nemacolin Woodlands Resort in southwestern Pennsylvania on a brisk day in early
November 2009, they found time for business -- and high jinks. During the
two-day event, managers presented PowerPoint slides celebrating the phenomenal
success of CGI Federal, a major technology contractor, in winning lucrative
government contracts

Excerpt: Obviously no one read Section 4002 in the
Affordable Care Act, because if they had they would
have seen that this little section created a fund to promote
Obamacare.Here are the staggering numbers allocated
to promote this monstrosity.In 2010 it is $500 million, in 2011, $750 million,
2012, $1 billion, 2013, $1.25 billion, 2014, $1.5 billion and in 2015 and on,
$2 billion!

Excerpt: Skeptical Republicans and hopeful Democrats alike
brushed aside the glowing report card on repairs to HealthCare.gov issued
by the Obama
administration Sunday, with lawmakers on both sides
acknowledging the president’s team has tougher work ahead.

Excerpt: In a column on the subject, Gupta cited evidence found in a
study which focused on two groups of people: Medicaid recipients and those not
covered by Medicaid. “It found that the people who were now newly insured did
go to the doctor more often, they did get more care,” he continued. “But here
was the interesting thing: they were less likely to actually be any healthier.”

“The point is that health
insurance alone isn’t going to make us healthier,” Gupta declared. “In are some
cases, insurance might actually be counterproductive,” CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer
submitted.

Excerpt: Mr. Hendee was given a letter by his congressman,
that was given to each member of the House, from the chief administrative
officer of the House of Representatives. That letter gives each congress person
a way they are be able to exempt their staff from the Obamacare exchanges and
allow them to stay on their Cadillac [as Edd Hendee calls them] federal
employee health benefits plans they have now.

Excerpt: President
Obama's inability to ensure a smooth rollout of the Obamacare exchange
website amounts to the greatest failure of management by any Democratic
president, said former Pennsylvania Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell, a longtime ally
of Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Excerpt: Weeks of frantic technical work appear to have made
the government’s health care website easier for consumers to use. But that does
not mean everyone who signs up for insurance can enroll in a health plan. The
problem is that the systems that are supposed to deliver consumer information
to insurers still have not been fixed.

Excerpt: Among conservatives I have met who were once poor
(and I have met a surprising number of them), the view that welfare subsidizes
and encourages dependency is almost a self-evident truth. I’m not sure I have
ever met a liberal who was once poor. But then again, the liberals I encounter
are all in the academic and public policy world ― far away from the poverty
population they so often talk about. I think this is a fascinating sociological
phenomenon. If my experience is different from yours, weigh in in the comments
section. [BTW, I am ignoring the shake down artists ― Jesse Jackson, Al
Sharpton and the like. We have no idea what these folks really think, since
(as Juan
Williams has documented) they routinely use liberal causes to line their
own pockets.]

Excerpt: The evidence suggests that use of private school
vouchers by low-income students actually has positive effects on racial
integration. Among the subset of students for whom data are available, we find
that transfers made possible by the school-choice program overwhelmingly
improve integration in the public schools that students leave (the sending
schools), bringing the racial composition of the schools closer to that of the
broader communities in which they are located.

Excerpt: With U.S.sales of
plug-in electric vehicles on pace to reach half of President Barack Obama’s goal, regulators
are following customers and automakers to vehicles powered by other fuels, from
hydrogen to diesel.

Excerpt: If there is anyone in the world today who embodies
the joy of the Christian Gospel, it is Jorge Mario Bergoglio. And the happiness
offered by embracing and living true faith in Christ and His Church (rather
than the vapid sentimentalism that often passes for love these days) permeates
Pope Francis’s new (and rather long) “apostolic exhortation,” Evangelii Gaudium, from beginning to end. Reading the text,
one does experience a profound sense of just how life-transforming belief in
Christ should be. (A deep analysis of the Pope's encyclical, showing both
strengths and weaknesses in its content. It appears the Pope, while utterly
sincere in his total committment to improving the lives of the poor, is perhaps
not as well informed about economics as he might be. And he gives Islam a pass
on the built-in slant towards violence that it contains, which is very well
described by the work of an Arabic Jesuit, who is perhaps closer to that topic
than His Holiness. Overall, his writings are still the remarkable expression of
Christian love and joy, and hopefully his papacy will be renowned for renewing
these aspects of Catholicism. --Del)

Excerpt: To find out, let’s imagine that another young,
attractive African American with an Ivy League education is president of the United States.
Let’s call him President Buckley — and let’s note that he’s very conservative. Let’s
say President Buckley used his considerable charisma to rail against the
prevalence of food stamps in our culture. Let’s say he wanted lower taxes on
corporations and thought the government was spending too much money on too many
programs that didn’t work. Who would be criticizing this black president?

Excerpt: Members of both political parties use sharp elbows
to rough up and discredit the opposition, but the media are supposed to call
“foul” on the worst abuses. But when the media are ideologically opposed to
conservatives — especially minority conservatives — the abuses sometimes get
lost in the shuffle. Take what happened last week to New Hampshire state
representative Marilinda Garcia, who announced she would challenge incumbent
Democratic representative Annie Kuster in a highly competitive district that
has switched party control in three of the last four elections.

"A tax cut means higher family income and higher
business profits and a balanced federal budget.... As the national income
grows, the federal government will ultimately end up with more revenues.
Prosperity is the real way to balance our budget. By lowering tax rates, by
increasing jobs and income, we can expand tax revenues and finally bring our
budget into balance." -- President John F. Kennedy (1917-1963)

Air Force considering changing degree in 4 years
requirement. By Irv Moss

Excerpt: Discussions are being held within the Air Force
Academy that could lead to expanding the basic four-year classroom program for
graduation to a five-year program for some cadets in order to enhance academic
achievements. Such a plan, if adopted, could have a huge effect on the athletic
program, thereby allowing an extra year of competition.

Excerpt: The clashes between Tripoli's
Alawite minority, which supports Syria's Alawite President Bashar
al-Assad, and majority Sunni Muslims who back the Syrian rebels, are the latest
round of violence which has killed more than 100 people in the Mediterranean
city this year.

Excerpt: Many of us moderns, of course, find Sassoon’s
beliefs, expressed in his poems and novels, about the futility and misery of
war more attractive than Churchill’s idealization of it, and consider such
enthusiasm untoward, if not sinister. Such attitudes have made war a
disreputable topic of study. Once vigorous in the academy, military history
programs are rarely found at universities and colleges today, even as “peace
studies” programs have proliferated.

Excerpt: In Vietnam
you could usually tell the guys who had no families. Most of us had pics of our
family and or girlfriends taped to the back of our locker in our hootch. Most
of us had "care packages' from home, tapes, cookies, candy, recent photos
from family and packs of kool-aid to mix in our canteens. These guys had
nothing from home. I would not personally get to know a "service
orphan" until I attended Officer's Training School. It was there that I
met Bob, a mustang like me, someone who had already served several years as an
enlisted man. Bob was in my training flight and one night we got to talking and
he told me about his youth and being raised, and never adopted in an
orphanage.

Gloria Steinem Represents the Worst of Modern Feminism.
By Cathy Young

Excerpt: "How does Steinem represent modern feminism’s
worst features? Let me count the ways." (If you are a man who has ever
been kicked in the shins for the sexist act of holding the door for a woman,
read this. --TH)

Excerpt: Still, the historic U.S.–Iranian rapprochement
seems to be galloping along, and any moment now the cultural-exchange program
will be announced and you’ll have to book early for the Tehran Ballet’s season
at the KennedyCenter (“Death to America” in repertory with “Death
to the Great Satan”). In Geneva,
the participants came to the talks with different goals: The Americans and
Europeans wanted an agreement; the Iranians wanted nukes. Each party got what
it came for.

Excerpt: To paraphrase TS Eliot, November was always a cruel
month for Jewish citizens of Arab states - and never more so than in the 1940s.
Three popular myths surround the 870,000 Jews who left Arab countries after Israel was
born. The first is that they departed of their own free will. Second, if they
did flee as refugees, it was because Arab states lashed out spontaneously
against their Jewish citizens like a bull to a red rag (and who could blame
them?). Third, the Arab states took revenge on their Jews for the plight of
Arabs driven out of Palestine.
There are several things wrong with this reading of history.

Excerpt: I am one who steers very clear of tinfoil hat
conspiracy theories. I often believe progressives plant stories in order to
distract and disrupt, enabling them to pursue their true goals and objectives.
That’s why I stress the importance of staying focused on the modern liberal
socialist policies of the Obama administration, not the sideshow antics.
(Wow... this really gets my attention, and it should get everyone's. Note that
the excuse is the exposure of the nearby children to lead. From a plant that
has been there for 120 years.... Here's the newsblast. If there were actual
dangers from the plant, the evidence of it would have been crystal clear many,
many years ago with a really unusual concentration of lead related ailments in
the local population. If such data existed, we'd have heard about it for sure
by now. But the absence of such data means that the threat is theoretical, it's
just a great excuse for closing the plant. We need the EPA brought back under
control for many reasons, but this one is particularly critical. Meanwhile, now
gun owners have another reason to go out and stock up on ammo, even for your
.22, since we know the prices are going to go up sometime soon. --Del)

Excerpt: A prominent 9/11 Truther took to the Iranian
state-run press on Saturday to accuse Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
and the “Zionist-controlled media” of “personally engineering” the Monica
Lewinsky scandal.

Excerpt: The Vietnam
of today wasn't what Le Hieu Dang had hoped for when he joined the Communist
Party 40 years ago to liberate and rebuild a country reeling from decades of
war and French and U.S.
occupation. (Finally, things have been so bad, for so long, and are now about
to get worse, that even lifelong communists are fed up with the corrupt system
of the Party, and are taking on real risk in publicly criticizing the government
and calling for change. Is it possible that finally the fire of freedom
can be awakened in millions of hearts in Viet Nam, and we might actually see
things change for the better? We can only hope and pray that this takes place.
--Del)

And now it's global
COOLING! Return of Arctic ice cap as it grows by 29% in a year

Excerpt: A chilly Arctic summer has left 533,000 more square
miles of ocean covered with ice than at the same time last year – an increase
of 29 per cent. The rebound from 2012’s record low comes six years after the
BBC reported that global warming would leave the Arctic ice-free in summer by
2013.

Excerpt: Boko Haram, a Nigerian terrorist group with ties to
al Qaeda, launched a major attack on a Nigerian Air Force base in the
insurgency-wracked city of Maiduguri.
A number of security personnel were killed and several aircraft were destroyed
during the nighttime attack that is said to have been executed by hundreds of
Boko Haram fighters.